


Blood is Compulsory

by voodoochild



Category: Ring of Honor, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Angst, Assumes Sami is Generico, Emotionally Repressed, Flashbacks, Introspection, Kayfabe Compliant, Love/Hate, M/M, Parallels, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Sublimation, Vignette, don't drink and read stoppard kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-29 16:13:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17206664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voodoochild/pseuds/voodoochild
Summary: Two Decembers and an October. Blood, love, and rhetoric mark the lives of Kevin Steen/Owens and El Generico/Sami Zayn.





	Blood is Compulsory

**Author's Note:**

> Written for rthstewart's [Three Sentence Ficathon](https://rthstewart.dreamwidth.org/139838.html), and clearly not following any of the rules. It was too perfect a parallel to restrict to three sentences, and I have WAY too many Steenerico/Zowens emotions right now.
> 
> Title from the Tom Stoppard quote below. Go watch R&GAD, if you've never experienced it.

_“We're more of the love, blood, and rhetoric school. Well, we can do you blood and love without the rhetoric, and we can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and we can do you all three concurrent or consecutive. But we can't give you love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory. They're all blood, you see.”_ \-- Tom Stoppard, "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead".

***

**I. Blood and Rhetoric (December 18, 2010)**

This is the end: Kevin and Generico, full circle from last year - low blow for low blow, steel for steel, and Generico wears black to mourn the friendship that once was. He and Kevin, unrelieved black against the bright streamers and ring apron, against the former heartbeat of their shared red. There is no love here, not when Kevin has ripped it from Generico's heart, spat upon it, and ground it into dust. 

But vengeance is not the story they will tell; it's bloodthirst. Generico draws first blood with the chain, punching truth and revenge into Kevin, and it backfires. Kevin has always been the more bloodthirsty of the two, and he wipes scarlet off his own face, writes words in his blood and licks it from his arm. This is a reminder and a message - to the audience, to Generico - _I am vicious, I am dangerous, I am the monster you have not been able to cage._

The crimson spills from Kevin to Generico, spattered across Generico's back from the attempts at putting him down and keeping him down, but that is not the story they are telling. The mask peels back, the man beneath revealed, and this is the story - _I need to destroy you, bathe in your blood, and steal a kiss of farewell that I do not deserve._ Kevin deserves what he gets, though; Generico revived, punishing him in ways both deliberate and accidental. Deserves the steel he gets to the temple and no forgiveness from his foe.

Forgiveness is not in this story yet. Not for two more years of blood, sweat, and steel.

***

**II. Blood and Love (December 11, 2014)**

This is the beginning: Sami reaching the apex of their business, draping himself in gold won from a former friend, and Kevin making his typical wrecking-ball introduction. There is no story yet, all the audience sees is what is in front of their eyes. They see a scared, proud prizefighter howling in triumph and sobbing in happiness. They see their beloved underdog beat the odds, beat the champ, lifted aloft by his peers in celebration. They see best friends, brothers, beloveds embracing. 

The blood is barely there, a cut from Kevin's nose that smears across Sami's shoulder and mixes with his tears. The blood and pain of a fight without honor is long in the past, and the audience does not know to doubt. 

Kevin will teach them how to understand him, what to be on the lookout for. Watch for when emotion is too much, when his mask is peeled back and his heart is revealed. Do not trust him, do not allow him the opportunity, because he will _strike_. A powerbomb on the ring apron, a head through a television screen, a series of punches to a once-concussed man... history repeats, with Kevin, and Sami should have known.

He should have remembered what happens when Kevin feels too much love and fear in combination. Kevin loved Generico, but he feared what that love meant. Kevin loved Sami, but he could not bear being left behind. He leaves Sami, this time, ignites the fuse and screams it to the heavens: _try and ignore me now, try and eclipse me, I will shine brighter and more terrible than you ever could._

***

**III. Love and Rhetoric (October 8, 2017)**

No beginning and no end. No blood to paint into canvas. This is the turn of a page, the end of a chapter, and this is why it is so shocking. 

The audience, you see, knows something is wrong. There is no blood, and for a Hell in a Cell match, there must be blood. There must be awe and disgust and terror. But there is no blood, even from Kevin. Oh, plenty of awe from the cage spots, plenty of fans on the edges of their seats. Plenty of disgust from three young boys who must watch their father be beaten by another man who loves his children. Terror of the impending cage fall, because Shane is predictable.

This story is about betrayal and loyalty. It is about heroism and sacrifice. It is about family and bonds. It's just not about Kevin and Shane . . . it's about Kevin and Sami, because a guardian angel could never allow his charge to be dragged to hell. Sami watched Shane ascend the cage, and he knew he had to act - pull Kevin to safety, keep him whole, rather than let Kevin get what his viciousness deserved. It is shocking to this audience, who only knows them as the bitterest of enemies.

(You have to see the bigger picture. You have to remember that once, the underdog wore a mask and cape. You have to see the scared, feral child inside the monster. You have to remember the bond of a tag team who went through hell together. You have to count backwards in two separate careers and realize that they are _one and the same_. Mirrored images, dark and light. Blood shed together, to get them to this place they inhabit now.)

There is no blood to be seen, so they seem bloodless. Easier to empathize with the man left to fall. Easier to paint them as the villains instead of the lovers. There is no resolution to this story, because there is no blood, no direction, no heart.

But the heart still beats, still lives, still tells us what it has always told us.

_This story is never over._


End file.
